The Sound and the Fury: Oratory of Conquest

The writer Hunter Thompson once quipped that if George McGovern had
Sitting Bull for a speech writer, he would have been a shoe-in for
the U.S. presidency in 1972. Right or wrong, Thompson's
rich bit of hyperbole makes an important point: some of America's
greatest orators learned their speaking skills not in political
campaigns or halls of Congress, but around council fires.

As you will see when you survey some of the following speeches,
Native America's greatest oratory soars across the centuries with
eloquence, passion, political insight, and moral authority that
would be the envy of Cicero's most gifted students.
Their words are leavened by the surprising oratory of many of the
military generals who faced them in battle and/or were charged with
clearing the American landscape of Native peoples to make way for
'civilization and progress.'

Thankfully, the oratory of conquest resides in the public
domain. Speeches, letters, and other documents cited
below have been collected from numerous sources, including
collections likeFrom the Heart: Voices of the American
Indian,edited and annotated by Lee Miller, andTouch the
Earth,edited by T.C. McLuhan.

What is important to remember as we read thru these remarkable
documents is that each one is endemic to the American
experience. As these words attest, that experience has been
much richer, more diverse and complex, and far more wrought with
paradox and ambiguity, than the American history portrayed on the
pages of conventional text books. What we find in these
speeches is a big story, one that much better serves us as citizens
and tenants of this complex and legendary landscape we call
America.

1607

The English settlers at Jamestown make first contact with the
Powhatan.

"The
Powhatan are souls drowned in flesh and blood, rooted in evil, and
opposed in good; errors of Nature, or inhumane Birth. The
very dregs, garbage, and spawned of the Earth. Who never (I
think) were mentioned with those creatures Adam gave names to in
their several natures but such as coming of a later brood.
Since the great Flood they have sprung up like vermine (sic) of an
earthly slime...Fathered by Satan, and the sons of hell."

Christopher Brooke, Englishman

"I have seen two generations of my people die. Not man
of the two generations is alive now but myself. I know the
difference between peace and war better than any men in my
country...Why will you take by force what you may have quietly by
love? Why will you destroy us who supply you with food?
What can you get by war? Why are you jealous of us? We
are unarmed, and willing to give you what you ask, if you come in a
friendly manner, and not with swords and guns, as if to make war
upon us. I am not so simple as not to know that it is much
better to eat good meat, sleep comfortably, live quietly with my
wives and children, laugh and be merry with the English, and trade
for their copper and hatchets, than to run away from them and lie
cold in the woods...and to be so hunted that I can neither eat nor
sleep...so I must end my miserable life."

Wahunsonacock,
Powhatan

1611

Agouachimagan, of theAlgonquintribe, challenges the teachings of
the Jesuit missionaries who have come to live among his people:

"...I
understand that your town is shaken by the words of the black
robes, that several have already received Baptism, that a larger
number desire it, and that you yourselves lend ear to these words
which charm at the first impression. But without doubt you
ignore, my brothers, where these promises of eternal life
end. I have been among the French at Quebec and at Three
Rivers: they taught me the foundation of their doctrine. But
the more thoroughly I examined their mysteries, the less clearly I
saw the light. They are tales invented to inspire us with
true beliefs of an imaginary fire and, under the false hope of a
good which never will come to us, engage us in inevitable
unhappiness."

Agouachimagan, Algonquin

1643

Given by an anonymousLenapeleader after trouble with the
English:

"When
the English arrived, they looked about everywhere for good spots of
land, and when they found one, they immediately and without
ceremony possessed themselves of it; we were astonished, but still
we let them go on, not thinking it worth while to content for a
little land. But when at last they came to our favorite
spots...then bloody wards ensued: we would have been contented that
the white people and w should have lived quietly beside each other,
but these white men encroached so fast upon us, that we saw at once
we should soon loose all if we did not resist them....We were
enraged when we saw the white people put our friends and relatives
o board of their ships and carry them off to sea, whether to drown
or sell them as slaves...we knew not, but certain it is that none
of them have ever returned or even been heard of."

Anonymous, Lenape

1662

King Philip, leader of the Wampanoag, on European justice:

"My brother...came miserably to die, by being forced to Court
and poisoned...If 20 of our honest Indians testify that an
Englishman has done us wrong, it is as nothing, and if but one of
our worst Indians testifies against any Indian or myself when it
pleases the English, that is sufficient."

King Philip, Wampanoag

1675

King Phillip addresses his people during the pivotal conflict
with European settlers in their midst:

"Brothers, you see this vast country before us, which the
Creator gave to our fathers and us; you see the buffalo and deer
that now are our support. Brothers, you see these little
ones, our wives and children, who are looking to us for food and
raiment; and you now see the foe before you, that they have grown
insolent and bold; that all our ancient customs are disregarded;
that treaties made by our fathers and us are broken, and all of us
insulted; our council fires disregarded, and all of the ancient
customs of our fathers; our brothers murdered before our eyes, and
their spirits cry to us for revenge. Brothers, these people
from the unknown world will but down our groves, spoil our hunting
and planting grounds, and drive us and our children from the graves
of our fathers, and our council fires, and enslave our women and
children."

After King Phillip's children and wife are sold into slavery by
the European clergy in Bermuda:

"My heart breaks, now I am ready to die."

King Philip,
Wampanoag

1724

The Penobscot fight back against incursions on their land and
resources by English settlements. This is from a
speech by a Penobscot chief, Kadokawando, to the English
interlopers:

"We were driven from our corn last year by the people about
Kennebeck, and many of us died. We had no powder and shot to
kill venison and fowl with, to prevent it. If you English
were our friends as you pretend you are, you would not suffer us to
stave as we did."

Kadokawando, Penobscot

1730

The Natchez battle for their survival against the encroachment of
Europeans on their lands in the South.

"...in
order to live in peace among ourselves, and to please the supreme
Spirit, we must indispensably observe the following points; we must
never know any other woman besides our own; we must never lie nor
get drunk; we must not be avaricious, but must give
liberally, and with joy, part of what we have to others who are in
ant, and generously share our subsistence with those who are in
need of it."

Guardian of the temple, Natchez

1740-1770s

Many southern tribes found themselves caught up wars between the
French and English, and later, between the English and the American
settlers. None were more deeply impacted than the Cherokee,
whose civilization covered much of the southeastern forests.

"It is a little surprising that when we entered into treaties
with the whites, their whole cry was for more land! Indeed,
it seemed to be a matter of formality with them to demand what they
knew we dared not refuse. If reconnoitering a country is
sufficient reason to ground a claim to it, we shall insist upon
transposing the demand, and your relinquishing your
settlements....Let us examine the facts of your present eruption
into our country, and we shall discover your pretentions on that
ground. What did you do? You marched into our
territories, you killed a few scattered and defenseless
individuals, you spread fire and desolation wherever you pleased,
and then you returned to your own habitations...Again, were we to
inquire by what law or authority you set up a claim, I answer,
None! Your laws extend not into our country, nor ever
did!"

Onitositah, Cherokee

"We had hoped the white men would not be willing to travel
beyond the mountains; now that hope is gone. They have passed
the mountains, and have settled upon Cherokee land....Finally, the
whole country, which the Cherokees and their fathers have so long
occupied, will be demanded, and the remnant of the Ani Yunwiya, The
Real People, once so great and formidable, will be compelled to
seek refuge in some distant wilderness. There, they will be
permitted to stay only a short while, until they again behold the
advancing banners of the same greedy host...Should we not therefore
run all risks and incur all consequences, rather than submit to
further laceration of our country? Such treaties may be all
right for men who are too old to hunt or fight. As for me, I
have my young warriors about me. We will have our
lands."

Tsiyu Gansini, Cherokee

1790s

President George Washington spent more time on Indian affairs than
on any other single aspect of statecraft during his
presidency. Among all the founders, Washington was the
most worried that future generations of Americans would not fulfill
their obligations to the tribes.

"The President of the United States entertains the opinion that
the war which exists is founded in error and mistake on your
parts. That you believe the United States want to deprive you
of your lands and drive you out of the country. Be assured
this is not so; on the contrary, that we should be greatly
gratified with the opportunity of imparting to you all the
blessings of civilized life, of teaching you to cultivate the
earth, and raise corn; to raise domestic animals, to build
comfortable houses, and to educate your children, so as ever to
dwell upon the land."

George Washington, President of the United States

1795 - Treaty of
Greenville

This treaty was supposed to bring peace between the new republic of
the United States and the tribes in the 'northwest': Wyandots,
Delawares, Shawanese, Ottawas, Chippewas, Pattawatamies, Miamies,
Eel Rivers, Weas, Kickapoos, Piankeshaws, and Kaskaskias. But
the treaty is a farce, and the incursions of white settlers on
Indian lands soon make it clear to the tribes that the new republic
has no intention of fulfilling its treaty obligations.

"The heavens and earth are my heart, the rising sun my
mouth...I dare not tell a lie. Now, my friend...do not
deceive us in the manner that the French, the British, and
Spaniards, have done before. The English abused us
much...they have proved to us how little they have ever had our
happiness at heart. Be you strong, and preserve your word
inviolate. I am old now, but I shall never die. I shall
always live in my children, and children's children."

New Corn, Potawatomi

1807 - 1812

As white citizens pour over the mountains into Indian country,
skirmishes between settlers and tribes become more intense with
each passing year. President Thomas Jefferson hopes to turn
the Louisiana Territory, west of the Mississippi River, into a new
Indian country.

"... we have learnt that some tribes are already expressing
intentions hostile to the United States, we think it proper to
apprise them of the ground on which they now stand...if ever we are
constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, we will never
lay it down till that tribe is exterminated, or driven beyond the
Mississippi River."

Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President

"Our enemies are not sufficiently humbled -- they do not sue
for peace. Buried in ignorance, and seduced by the false
pretences of their prophets, they have the weakness to believe they
will still be able to make a decided stand against us. They
must be undeceived, and made to atone their obstinacy and their
crimes, by still further suffering."

Andrew Jackson, U.S. Army

1812 - 1820s

The tribes of the Ohio Valley and the 'northwest' (Indiana,
Illinois) were the first to learn that the white man's promises
made around a treaty council were not to be trusted. The
leaders Tecumseh and Black Hawk would strike heavy blows against
the Americans, but in the end their campaigns to retain their
treaty-protected homelands would fail.

"As they (Indians) possess a rich, beautiful and extensive
tract of land, surrounded by white settlers, such a fertile spot is
an object of desire to avaricious white men. Hence the whites
ardently desire to see the Wyandot reservation exposed to
sale. Agents and officers of every description press the
subject by every means in their power. The white people have
impoverished them much by stealing almost all their horses.
Thus they are beset by importunate and interested persons, so as to
produce divisions among themselves. If they stay where they
are they are robbed and harassed."

Rev. Charles Elliot, United States citizen

"If there be one here tonight who believes that his rights will
not, sooner or later, be taken from him by the avaricious
Americans...his ignorance out to excite pity, for he knows little
of the character of our common foe."

Tecumseh, Shawnee

" Have you not heard at evening those mournful sounds that steal
through the deep valleys and along the mountain sides? These
are the wailings of those spirits whose bones have been turned up
by the plow of the white man and left to the mercy of the rain and
wind...The eastern tribes have long since disappeared - even the
forests that sheltered them are laid low...and such, sooner or
later, will be the fate of other tribes...They will vanish like a
vapor from the face of the earth: their very history will be
lost in forgetfulness, and the places that now know them will know
them no more. We are driven back until we can retreat no
farther....a little longer and the white man will cease to
persecute us, for we shall cease to exist!"

Tenskwatawa, Shawnee

"The only time the Americans shook hands was when they wanted
another piece of Menominee land."

Oshkosh, Menominee

"The earth s the floor, the clear sky is the roof, a blazing
fire is the chair of the chief orator, and the green grass is the
seats of our chiefs. You speak by papers, and record your
words in books; but we speak from our hearts, and memory records
our words in the hearts of our people..."

Grizzly Bear, Menominee

"How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can
make right look like wrong, and wrong like right. I was
puzzled to find out how the white people reasoned; and began to
doubt whether they had any standard of right and wrong!"

Black Hawk, Sauk

"You know the cause of our making war. It is known to all
white men and they ought to be ashamed of it. The white men
despise the Indians and drive them from their homes, but the
Indians are not deceitful. The Indian does not tell lies;
Indians do not steal...We told them to let us alone and keep away
from us, but they followed on and beset our paths and they coiled
themselves among us like the snake. They poisoned us by their
touch."

Black Hawk, Sauk

1817

Andrew Jackson knew well that he did not defeat the Redsticks; he
only won a battle, writes Lee Miller in her book,From the
Heart. If Jackson was not convinced that extinguishing a
people's spirit is no easy task, then the Seminole Wars would
finish the job. Now he was battling the inspired chief,
Osceola, who was confident in the Seminole's cause and his tribe's
ability to prevail. Eventually captured under a flag of
truce, Osceola is confined as a prisoner of war in the Spanish
fortress of San Marcos, where he will die.

"I
have done nothing to be ashamed of; it is for those to feel shame
who entrapped
me."

Osceola, Seminole

"We learn...that a vessel with thirty-three blood-hounds, from
Cuba, had entered one of the ports....They are to be employed in
hunting down the miserable remnant of the Seminoles in
Florida. We have never read anything more strikingly
illustrative of the inhumanity and injustice of this war than these
remarks...

A great, powerful, and magnanimous nation of fifteen millions of
freemen, hunting down with blood-hounds a wretched squad of
Indians, dwelling in a country which no white man can inhabit after
it is conquered! A war which will complete the solitude of a
desert, by destroying the remnant of life that remains in it...With
what degree of condemnation with the good and wise of every country
and age regard the attempt of our Government to extirpate, by means
so terrible..."

Editorial board, New York New World

1830

At the urging of President Andrew Jackson, the U.S. Congress passes
a law that ushers in 'the removal era' for tribes still living east
of the Mississippi River. Despite a ruling from the U.S.
Supreme Court that found removal to be unconstitutional and
forbidden by federal statutes, Jackson and his allies in southern
state governments pressed ahead with their long-cherished dream for
forcibly removing all Indian nations to 'unoccupied lands' west of
the Mississippi. Commonly, the Trail of Tears refers to the
forcible removal of the Cherokee. In fact, dozens of tribes
experienced their own Trail of Tears between 1830 and
1842.

"When
you were young, we were strong; we fought by your side; but our
arms are now broken. You have grown large, my people have
become small. Brother, my voice is weak, you can scarcely
hear me; it is not the shout of a warrior, but the wail of an
infant. I have lost it in mourning over the misfortunes of my
people. These are their graves, and in those aged pines the
ghosts of the departed. Their ashes are here, and we have
been left to protect them...Their tears came in the rain drops, and
their voices in the wailing winds, but the pale faces knew it not,
and our land was taken away."

Colonel Webb, Choctaw

(On the Trail of Tears)

"...news come that Cherokees will have to leave and go to a new
land. Big prison pens are built and all Cherokees what won't
get up and leave are put in pens. Log time we travel on way
to new land. Women cry and make sad wails. Children cry
and many men cry, and all look sad when friends die, but they say
nothing. They put heads down and keep on going toward
west. Many days pass and people die very much. No
Cherokee will ever laugh again after he has marched this long
trail."

Anonymous, Cherokee

"We have been made to drink of the bitter cup of humiliation;
treated like dogs, our lives, our liberties, the sport of the
Whiteman; our country and the graves of our Fathers torn from us,
in cruel succession until...we find ourselves fugitives, vagrants,
and strangers in our own country."

John Ross, Cherokee

"In America, the perpetrator of a wrong never forgives his
victim."

John Ross, Cherokee

"Murder is murder and somebody must answer, somebody must
explain the streams of blood that flowed in the Indian
country...Somebody must explain the four thousand silent graves
that mark the trail of the Cherokees to their exile.

Let the Historian of a future day tell the sad story with its
sighs, its tears and dying groans. Let the Judge of all the
earth weigh our actions and reward us according to our
work."

John Burnett, U.S. Army.

"They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral
habits, nor the desire of improvement....Established in the midst
of another and superior race, they must necessarily yield and ere
long disappear."

President Andrew Jackson

"No state can achieve proper culture, civilization, and
progress....as long as Indians are permitted to remain."

President Martin Van
Buren

1837

Once again, small-pox ravages the plains tribes, none worse than
the Mandan, who lost all but a handful of their tribes.

"When the great chief came to visit us a few years ago, he said
to us: My children, be faithful to the whites, obey our Great
Father, keep the peace and do not break your word, and the smoke of
your fires will go straight up to the sky.

We have done as our Great Father ordered, and, in spite of all, the
smoke of our fires instead of rising straight up towards the
heavens, is thrown upon the ground and has been chased by all the
winds."

Crow Belly, Hidatsa

"...we have the most frightful accounts of the ravages of the
small-pox among the Indians. It has converted the peaceful
settlements of those tribes into desolate and boundless
cemeteries. The number of the victims within few months
is estimated at 30,000. The small-pox was communicated to the
Indians by a person who was on board the steam-boat which went up
to the mouth of the Yellow Stone, to convey both the government
presents for the Indians, and the goods for the barter trade of the
fur dealers. The ravages of the disorder were the most
frightful among the Mandans, where it first broke out. That
once powerful tribe, which had already been reduced to 1500 souls,
was exterminated, with the exception of thirty persons....The
prairie all around is a vast field of death, covered with unburied
corpses, and spreading, for miles, pestilence and
infection."

Maximilian, Prince of Wied

"My friends, listen to what I have to say. Ever since I
can remember I have loved the whites, I have lived with them ever
since I was a boy, I have never wronged a white man, I have always
protected them from the insults of others...and how have they
repaid it. With ingratitude! I have never called a
white man a dog, but today, I pronounce them to be a set of black
hearted dogs. They have deceived me...I don not fear death my
friends, you know it, but to die with my face rotten, that even the
wolves will shrink with horror at seeing me, and say to themselves,
that is the Four Bears, the friend of the whites..."

Four Bears, Mandan

1860s

The first 'removal era' ended in the 1840s, but just as leaders of
those tribes predicted a generation earlier, tribes living west of
the Mississippi river would soon endure the same pressures of white
migration. The pleas and protests of Indian leaders like
Sitting Bull, Black Kettle, and Satanta, reached new levels of
eloquence and despair.

"All
we as is that we may have peace with the whites....We want to take
good tidings home to our people, that they may sleep in
peace. I want you to give all the chiefs of the soldiers here
to understand that we are for peace, and that we have made peace,
that we may not be mistaken by them for enemies."

Black Kettle, Southern Cheyenne

"I once thought that I was the only man that persevered to be
the friend of the white man, but since they have come and cleaned
out our lodges, horses, and everything else, it is hard for me to
believe white men any more."

Black Kettle, Southern Cheyenne

"I have heard that you intend to settle us on a reservation
near the mountains. I don't want to settle. I love to
roam over the prairies. There I feel free and happy, but when
we settle down we grow pale and die. I have laid aside my
lance, bow, and shield, and yet I feel safe in your presence.
I have told you the truth. I have no little lies hid about
me....A long time ago this land belonged to our fathers; but when I
go up to the river I see camps of soldiers. These soldiers
cut down my timber, they kill my buffalo, and when I see that, my
heart feels like bursting."

Satanta, Kiowa

1864

Hundreds of Cheyenne are killed in an infamous massacre at Sand
Creek carried out by a Methodist minister, Col. John Chivington,
and his troops. In testimony before Congress, members of
Chivinton's command described the mayhem on that frigid December
morning:

"The Cheyenne will have to be soundly whipped before they will
be quiet. If any of them are caught in your vicinity kill
them, as that is the only way."

Col. John Chivington. U.S. Army

"There was one little child, probably three years old, just big
enough to walk through the sand. The Indians had gone ahead,
and this little child was behind following them. The little
fellow was perfectly naked, travelling on the sand. I saw one
man get off his horse and draw up his rifle and fire. He
missed the child. Another man came up and said, "Let me try
the son of a bitch, I can hit him." But he missed as
well. A third man came up and made a similar remark, and
fired, and the little fellow dropped."

Major Scott Anthony, U.S. Army

" I did not see a body of a man, woman, child but was scalped;
and I many instances their bodies were mutilated in the most
horrible manner, men, women and children, their privates cut
out. I heard one man say that he had cut a woman's private
parts out and had them for exhibition on a stick. I heard
another man say that he had but the fingers off an Indian to get
the rings on the hand. I also heard of numerous instances in
which men had cut out the private parts of females and stretched
them over the saddle bows, and wore them over their hats while
riding in the ranks."

First Lieutenant James Connor, U.S. Army

From following testimony was made to a Congressional tribunal which
ultimately determined that the massacre resulted from "the fiendish
malignity and cruelty of the officers who had so sedulously and
carefully plotted the massacre." Nevertheless, none of the
white men who took part in this massacre were ever convicted of a
crime.

"It is difficult to believe that beings in the form of me, and
disgracing the uniforms of United States soldiers and officers,
could commit or countenance the commission of such acts of cruelty
and barbarity....Governor Evans (Colorado) in a proclamation calls
upon all "either individually or in such parties as they may
organize, to kill and destroy as enemies of the country, wherever
they may be found, all such hostile Indians." What
Indians he would ever term friendly it s impossible to tell.
His testimony...was characterized by such prevarication and
shuffling as has been shown by no witness they have examined during
the four years they have been engaged in their investigation....As
to Colonel Chivington, your committee can hardly find fitting terms
to describe his conduct....he deliberately planned and executed a
found and dastardly massacre which would have disgraced the veriest
savage among those who were the victims of his cruelty.
Having full knowledge of their friendly character, having himself
been instrumental to some extent in placing them in their position
of fancied security, h took advantage of their inapprehension...t
gratify the worst passions that ever cursed the heart of
men."

Joint Special Committee of the United States Congress

1870s

General Philip H. Sheridan famously commented during the Indian
Wars of the 19th century that the "only good Indian is a dead
one." Sheridan promoted policies that encouraged white
hunters to slaughter herds of buffalo in order to starve the
western tribes into submission:

"The buffalo hunters have done more...to settle the vexed
Indian question than the entire regular army....For the sake of
lasting peace, let them kill, skin, and sell until the buffalos are
exterminated."

General Philip H. Sheridan, U.S. Army

"Everything the Kiowas had came from the buffalo. Our
tipis were made of buffalo hides, so were our clothes and
moccasins. We ate buffalo meat. Our containers were
made of hide, or of bladders or stomachs. The buffalo were
the life of the Kiowas."

Old Lady Horse, Kiowa

"In despair, I look toward the cliffs behind me and I seem to see a
dim trail that may lead to a way of life; but no Indian ever passed
over that trail. It looks to be impassable. I make the
attempt. I take my child by the hand, and my wife follows
me. Our hands and our feet are torn by the sharp rocks, and
our trail is marked by our blood. At last, I see a rift in
the rocks. A little way beyond there are green
prairies. The Swift Running Water pours down between the
green islands. There are the graves of my fathers.
There again we will pitch our tepee and build our fires. I
see the light of the world just ahead.

But in the center of that path there stands a man. Behind him
I see soldiers like the leaves of the trees. If that man
gives permission, I may pass on to life and liberty. If he
refuses, I must go back and sink forever beneath the raging
flood...

You are that man!"

Standing Bear, Ponca:
from a speech made to U.S. District Court Judge Elmer Dundy

"Crow country is good country. The Creator put it exactly
in the right place; while you are in it you fare well;
whenever you are out of it, whichever way you travel, you fare
worse...the Crow country has snowy mountains and sunny plains, all
kinds of climates and good things for every season. When the
summer heats scorch the prairie, you can draw up under the
mountains where the air is sweet and cool, and the bright streams
come tumbling out of the snowbanks. Crow country is in
exactly the right place."

Arapooish, Crow

"We soon learned that the Whites expected us to keep their
laws, but they thought nothing of breaking them themselves.
They told us not to drink whiskey, yet they traded it to us for
furs and robes until both were nearly gone. Their Wise Ones
said we might have their religion...we saw that the white man did
not take his religion any more seriously than he did his laws, and
that he kept both of them just behind him, like Helpers, to use
when they might do him good...These were not our ways. We
kept the laws we made and lived our religion. We have never
been able to understand the white man, who fools nobody but
himself."

Plenty-Coups, Crow

"Our land is more valuable than your money. It will last
forever. It will not even perish by the flames of fire.
As long as the sun shines and the waters flow, this land will be
here to give life to men and animals. We cannot sell the
lives of men and animals. It was put here for us by the Great
Spirit and we cannot sell it because it does not belong to
us. You can count your money and burn it within the nod of a
buffalo's head, but only the Great Spirit can count the grains of
sand and the blades of grass on the plains. As a present to
you, we will give you anything we have that you can take with you;
but the land, never."

Crowfoot, Blackfoot

"Whose voice was first heard in this land? It was the red
people. The Great Father has sent his people out there and
left me nothing but an island....The white people have sprinkled
blood on the blades of grass about the line of fort
Fetterman. Tell the Great Father to remove that fort, then we
will be peaceful and there will be no more trouble. I have
got two mountains in that country -- Black Hills and Big
Horn. I want no roads there. There have been stakes
driven into that country, and I want them removed. I have
told these things three times, and I now have come here to tell
them for the fourth time."

Red Cloud, Oglala

"Look at me, and look at the earth. Which is the
oldest? The earth, and I was born on it....It does not belong
to u alone; it was our fathers', and should be our children's after
us. When I received it, it was all in one piece, and so I
hold it. If the white men take my country, where can I
go. I cannot spare it, and I love it very much. Let us
alone. That is what they promised in their treaty, to let us
alone. What is this white soldier doing here? Why did
he come fore? To spy out the land, and to find a good place
for a fort and a road, and to dig out gold?"

Sitting Bull, Hunkpapa

1876

After the Battle of the Little BigHorn...

"We
all went over the divide and camped in the valley of the Little
Horn. Everybody thought, "Now we are out of white man's
country. He can live there, we will live here."

I went to water my horses at the creek, and washed them off with
cool water, then took a swim myself. I came back to the camp
afoot. When I got near my lodge, I looked up the Little Horn
towards Sitting Bull's camp. I saw a great dust rising.
It looked like a whirlwind...I saw flags come up over the hill to
the east....Then the soldiers rose all at once...the Sioux rode up
the ridge on all sides, riding very fast. The Cheyenne went
up the left way. Then the shooting was quick and we circled
all around, swirling like water round a stone...Soldiers in line
drop, but one man rides up and down the line, all the time
shouting. He rode a sorrel horse with white face and white
fore-legs. I don't know who he was. He was a brave
man.

All the soldiers were now killed, and were left where they
fell. We had no dance that night. We were
sorrowful."

Two Moons, Northern Cheyenne

"I wish all to know that I do not propose to sell any part of
my country, nor will I have the whites cutting our timber along the
rivers, more especially the oak. I am particularly fond of
the little groves of oak trees. I love to look at them
because they endure the wintry storm and the summer's heat and, not
unlike ourselves, seem to flourish by them."

Sitting Bull, Hunkpapa

"The white man does not understand the Indian for the reason
that he does not understand America. He is too far
removed...the roots of the tree of his life have not yet grasped
the rock and soil. The white man is still troubled with
primitive fears; he still has in his consciousness the perils of
this frontier continent, some of its vastness not yet having
yielded to his questing footsteps and inquiring eyes....The man
from Europe is still a foreigner and an alien. And he still
hates the man who questioned his path across the continent.
But in the Indian the spirit of the land is still vest; it will be
until other men are able to divine and meet its rhythm. Men
must be born and reborn to belong. Their bodies must be
formed of the dust of their forefathers' bones."

Standing Bear, Oglala

1877

In the words of General Crook, the war against the Nez Perce was
one of the most extraordinary military campaigns in American
history. Among many other things, it produced one of
America's greatest 19th century orators, Chief Joseph.

"My
father was the first to see through the schemes of the white
men. One day he sent for me. I saw he was dying.
He said, When I am gone, think of your country. You are the
chief of these people. They look to you to guide them.
Always remember that your father never sold his country. You
must stop your ears whenever you are asked to sign a treaty selling
your home. A few more years and the white men will be all
around you. They have their eyes on this land. My son,
never forget my dying words. This country holds your father's
body. Never sell the bones of your father and your
mother."

Chief Joseph, Nez Perce

"The earth was created by the assistance of the sun, and it
should be left as it was. The country was made without lines
of demarcation, and it is no man's business to divide it. I
see the whites all over the country gaining wealth, and see their
desire to give us lands which are worthless...Perhaps you think the
Creator sent you here to dispose of us as you see fit. If I
thought you were sent by the Creator I might be induced to think
you had a right to dispose of me. Do not misunderstand me,
but understand me fully with reference to my affection for the
land. I never said the land was mine to do with it as I
chose. The one who has the right to dispose of it is
the one who has created it. I claim a right to live on my
land, and accord you the privilege to live on yours.

So let me be a free man -- free to travel, free to stop, free to
work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers,
free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk
and act for myself."

Chief Joseph, Nez Perce

"An Indian reservation is a parcel of land set aside for the
exclusive use of Indians, and is surrounded by thieves."

General William Tecumseh Sherman

1890 - On the murder of Sitting
Bull:

"I
read that the great Sioux leader is dead, that he was set upon in
the dist of his family, with his wives and children and relatives
around him, that he committed no overt act of war.

I read that they have buried his body like a dog's -- without
funeral rights....That is the deed of today. That is the best
this generation has to give to this noble, historic character, this
man who in his person ends the line of aboriginal sanctities older
than the religion of Christian or Jew. Very Well! So
let it stand for the present. But there is a generation
coming that shall reverse this judgment of ours. Our children
shall build monuments to those whom we stoned, and the great
aboriginals whom we killed will be counted by future Americans as
among the historic characters of the Continent....for as the Lord
liveth (sic) and my soul liveth (sic) a monument shall be built on
that spot before many years, inscribe to the memory of the last
great Prophet of the Sioux."

Fletcher Johnson, U.S. citizen

1890s

Led by the Paiute medicine man, Wavodka, plains tribes turn to the
Ghost Dance to reconnect them with their fallen ancestors, and to
protect them in future battles. White communities are so
alarmed by this resurgence of Indian religion that they call on the
government to put it down immediately. One casualty of this
policy will be mayhem in the Black Hills. Another will be the
senseless massacre by the 7th Cavalry of Big Foot's band of women,
children, and old people, at a little known stream called Wounded
Knee.

"The Indians must be killed as fast as they make an appearance
and before they can do any damage. It is better to kill an
innocent Indian occasionally than to take chances on
goodness. To exterminate them it will be necessary to employ
first class killers, regardless of expense....The Indians continue
to dance and defy the soldiers, and even to defy them to fight, and
declare that they will continue to dance to their heart's
content....In the name of all that is sensible, why were the
soldiers moved from all quarters of this continent if not to subdue
this insolence of a savage race, to take their arms from them, to
stop their infernal ghost dancing?"

Editorial, Black Hills Daily Times

"Suddenly, I heard a single shot from the direction of the
troops -- then three or four -- a few more -- and immediately a
volley. At once came a general rattle of rifle firing, then
the Hotchkiss guns.

The Hotchkiss guns opened fire on the little central band of
Indians -- 106 men and 252 women and children. Every warrior,
including Big Foot himself, who was ill in his tent with pneumonia,
was killed or seriously wounded. The Indian women and
children fled, some of them on up out across the prairie, but
soldiers followed them and shot them down mercilessly....The boom
of the Hotchkiss guns and rattle of the rifles satisfied me that
hardly an Indian would be left alive. I had known definitely
that not one single leading man among all the Sioux bands intended
or wanted to fight."

Thomas Tibbles, U.S. Cavalry

"It was a good winter day when all this happened. The sun
was shining. But after the soldiers marched away from their
dirty work, a heavy snow began to fall. The wind came up in
the night. There was a big blizzard, and it grew very
cold. The snow drifted deep in the crooked gulch, and it was
one long grave of butchered women and children and babies, who had
never done any harm and were only trying to run away."

Black Elk, Oglala

"Talk not of grief till thou hast seen the tears of warlike
men."

Crooked Arm, Cree

"In my fifty years on the plains, I have never known war to
break out with these tribes because an Indian leader broke his
word."